New OED Software Tools

One of my trademark gestures with OED games is to rely on a number of software and statistical tools to make sure that the systems we use are as robust, dependable, and playable at the table (or virtual table) as possible. For some time I've released the source code to those tools on Github. More than once I've received a comment that someone would like to use them, but as a non-coder they're not set up to do development & compilation from source files.

Here's a step in that direction; I've made pre-compiled Java executable JAR files and released them on a new add-ons page at OEDGames.com. So you can just grab one of those programs and the data files and run them immediately.

Caveat: For efficiency purposes they're still command-line tools with no graphical interface. So you'll still need to be comfortable with opening a command line and typing something like java -jar Arena-1.0.1.jar on your system, plus any command-line arguments to control the process; run with the -? to see the options available with each tool.

In particular, the new thing I've added in the lat week is the capacity for the NPCGenerator tool to output a batch of fully-formed PDF character sheets in the OED style. Run this like java -jar NPCGenerator.1.0.1.jar -p to get PDF output files (among other option switches). Beyond that, the Marshal program to batch-create large groups of man-types, with leaders fully developed over their entire simulated adventuring career, is also likey useful to DMs of any classic-D&D style games.

If anyone wants to take that code and create GUI wrappers around them for less-technical users, please go ahead, as the code is all released under the GPL on our Github page (ChgoWiz, I'm looking at you, among others). Hope that helps some folks!

OED Games Software Tools Page